Oak
Chapel United Methodist Church1996 thru today...
Construction: (Slide show of construction.) 1996 saw the continuation of our fund raising efforts for our building campaign. The cost of the initial design, engineering and permits was approximately $50,000.00. We had to raise the additional down payment of $300,000.00 in order to receive approval for a building loan for the remaining amount of the building cost, ( about $1,200,000.00.)
Our little church worked and prayed very hard. We held fund raising events and a large capital campaign. Finally we had the money to begin the process in late 1998. Permits, forgets, "ooph -es," and delays tested our patience and fortitude. We officially broke ground for the project on April 23, 1999. An article in the local newspaper featured Reverend Boyer with a shovel in hand on that beautiful sunny Sunday. Click on picture for larger image. We had a large number of challenges trying to construct this building, a forgotten storm water drainage permit application, a retiring civil engineer, an aging and ailing construction company president, and then the rains...
In the preceding two years before we began building our new Fellowship Hall, the metro Washington D.C. area experienced quite a drought. God favored us by breaking the drought in the spring of 1999 and he gave us large amounts of rain to make up for the low water levels in the water table, area streams, ponds and lakes. This was a wonderful blessing for the trees, plants, fish and animals throughout the Chesapeake Region. However, large amounts of rain are not helpful to construction projects. At one point there were several jokes about having our own Lake Oak Chapel because the construction area was under water for days at a time, several different weeks during the construction process.
(Click any picture for a larger version.)Finally 18 months later, in early 2001, we had the new building dedication. The building has dramatically helped us reach out to the community and it was worth all trials and tribulations during its construction.
(See the full size pictures here.)
The original Oak Chapel still stands
and is still being used.We now have a place for our community to meet and continue both our ministry and to assist the community at large. We host a local Alcoholics Anonymous group, Physical Fitness classes, various local Homeowners Association meetings, as well as other local non-profit secular groups.
We now have a commemorative statue of Fellowship Hall in memory of Bud Myers.
The Tree of Life: We embrace our rich history and look forward to expanding our family and future history through our addition of the Tree of Life Plaque located in the Fellowship Hall. Here we commemorate and list the new additions to our history.
Our School and Daycare Center
All good things must come to an end.
The Hartlove's are retiring and closing the School/Daycare facility as of September 1, 2006.
We wish them well on their new endavors and are looking for another Daycare Corporation to fill the void in our community.
As previously stated, Oak Chapel Child Development Center started in 1992 emphasizing Christian values. As the church has grown so has our Child Development Center. Most the students and parents do not belong to the church so this has been a tremendous outreach to the community both filling a need and has attracted new members. Based on the needs these parents, the child care program has grown and added an elementary school and now a middle school serving about 120 children. This has been incorporated as a separate non-profit entity called Oak Chapel Academy, and is run by two members of the church, Maurice and Maritsa Hartlove. There are numerous scholarship programs that assist persons of varying income levels provide a high quality loving education or daycare service for their children.
Serving our Community: Ever onward and upward...
Now that the dust has settled we are moving on to better serve our community. We have found new uses for our facility, and new ways of having fun while trying to make everyone's life a little more joyful. Our new Fellowship Hall is host to a number of events for the local community, various homeowners association (HOA) meetings, a local Alcohol Anonymous Chapter (contact the church office for more information), a Non-Profit Karate Class for children, and the list goes on...
We have added to our music program with the new facility. Now we have an electronic carillon, sending music to the local community, as well as two organs for worship services, one in the Historic Chapel and the one new Fellowship Hall. In 2004 both our choir director and our organist retired. We were able to combine the positions and fill the need with our new Music Director / Organist, Mrs. Ji-Hyun Lee.
With these new programs and facilities has come additional work. Our Pastor, Reverend Bill Boyer moved to a part time work schedule in preparation for his retirement in June of 2005. We were fortunately that Bob Schneider agreed to become our Assistant Pastor and feel very lucky that he was appointed our new pastor as of July 2005.
Now, we have a number of church projects we are working on.
We are refurbishing our cemetery and working on marking all the graves, fixing broken markers, and searching our records to better serve local Historians and people studying Genealogy. You can get more information here on our Cemetery History page, or for those who are searching family history you can get our current Cemetery Records here...
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